The Zika virus is putting thousands of women in an impossible situation

A pro-abortion activist holds up a sign that says "We decide" during a march to support a proposal to change Peruvian abortion laws on August 12, 2015.Guadalupe Pardo/REUTERS
As the fear that the Zika virus may be connected to debilitating birth defects grows, some South American countries where the disease is spreading are recommending that women stop having children until the outbreak is over.

But that advice is especially challenging in a region where abortion is mostly illegal, and many women can't get birth control.

If you think about how difficult it can be for women in the US to get affordable access to contraception and safe, legal abortions, imagine how impossible it must be for women in many of the Central and South American countries where Zika is on the rise.

Anti-abortion laws

Nearly all — 95%— of the 4.4. million abortions performed in Latin America in 2008 were unsafe, according to a report from the reproductive health group the Guttmacher Institute. This means they were done by untrained providers (often the women themselves), or in an inadequate medical environment.

Abortion is only allowed for specific reasons— like saving the life of the mother, or if the baby was the result of rape — in Antigua and Barbuda, Brazil, Dominica, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Venezuela, Argentina, Bahamas, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Grenada, Peru, Colombia, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Belize, St. Vincent and Grenadines.

So far, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, and Jamaica have all recommended that women should delay pregnancy. But these countries all have anti-abortion laws on the books — and some women, of course, were already pregnant when the warnings about Zika surfaced.

Luckily, the Colombian government has said that pregnant women who are diagnosed with Zika will qualify for legal abortions under an exception made for health reasons, Reuters reported.

Access to contraception

But restriction of abortions is just part of the problem.

Contraception use has been increasing over the last decade in Central and South America, but access can still be a problem, especially for low-income women. Almost three-quarters of married women in Latin America and the Caribbean were using contraception in 2010, reported a 2013 study in The Lancet.

But for unmarried young women who are sexually active and want to avoid pregnancy, only half are using a modern method of birth control like the pill, condoms, or an IUD, according to another Guttmacher Institute report.

Many of these countries are largely Catholic nations, and many conservative beliefs about reproduction remain.

Rain Gomes waits for medical care with her son Alessandro Gomes, who has microcephaly, at the Oswaldo Cruz Hospital in Recife, Brazil on January 26, 2016.Ueslei Marcelino/REUTERS
Though the link between the Zika virus and birth defects like microcephaly is still unproven, the evidence is growing, and the fear of such a connection is spreading even faster.

If we are truly going to contain the Zika outbreak, and prevent babies from being born with possible complications because of it, public health officials insist that we have to improve women's health care in Central and South America. Controlling the mosquitoes that transmit the virus is just one of the ways to fight this outbreak.

"It isn't fair to say 'don't get pregnant' when there is no sexual education program in schools," Dr. Guillermo Antonio Ortiz, the former chief of obstetrics at the National Women's Hospital in El Salvador, told STAT News. "The government has a responsibility to not just advise against pregnancy, but also make sure there is safe and modern contraception available."